A standard element is a model object that is key to one or more disciplines within your project. Imagine the requirements ‘enable road traffic to flow in both directions’ and ‘public lighting must illuminate the roadways’, which are key to the requirements manager. In this example, the SE model of the workspace needs to contain a standard type element ‘Requirement’ that allows to store these requirements. By extending the SE model with other standard type elements (e.g. ‘System object’, ‘Interface’, ‘Risk’), other disciplines are able to describe their part of the project. The SE model can be further enriched with properties, relations, derived elements, and middle elements to describe more details of the standard elements and to describe dependencies between the standard elements.

Create a standard element

A standard element is autonomous by nature. Project members can create new elements that are relevant to their discipline from scratch without any dependencies. It is simply a matter of adding a new element to the overview of the corresponding standard type element (e.g. ‘Requirement’). By clicking on the detail view of the created element, the full details of the element can be inspected. Notice that each element has an ID. This helps project members to easily identify elements in each part of the workspace.

Update a standard element

Both in the overview and the detail view, other relevant model objects for the element can be updated. This concerns the properties, derived elements and middle elements of the corresponding element. When you update other relevant model objects for a standard element, everywhere in the workspace where the corresponding model object is displayed, the update is directly visible to all users.

Delete a standard element

In the overview it is possible to delete a standard element. Although the standard element is autonomous by nature, it can be the case that you are prohibited from deleting the element. This is the case when another standard element has a relation that points to the standard element that you want to delete. Because there is a dependency between the standard elements, first the dependency needs to be solved. For example, by deleting all incoming relations for a standard element, it becomes possible to delete the element.

1. On the overview, in a table or tree, select the element you want to delete.
2. In the toolbox, click on Delete.

Note:

• Deleted elements are not permanently deleted. If you change your mind, you can undelete the element from the recycle bin.
• If you delete an element, all the properties, derived elements and relations directing to other elements are also deleted. Without the deleted element these parts of the model would have no meaning.
• An element is blocked from being deleted in case the corresponding element has one or more incoming relations. Without the relations, the meaning of the other elements would be affected. If you are sure about deleting an element, remove the individual incoming relations first.